by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Clients pay $ millions for recommendations Management consultants are not cheap. Yes, consulting bill rates are high, AND a lot of client energy goes into rallying the client organization for kick-off meetings, focus groups, interviews, working sessions, status...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Create and keep a customer For all the talky-talk about consulting, it really comes down to what Peter Drucker said 60 years ago, “The purpose of a business is to create and keep a customer.” BOOM, how simple and beautiful is that? Create: know...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
No project has perfect data For the jaded and and road-weary consultants, this will sound like an understatement. In fact, it’s usually like an Easter egg hunt where the team has a good idea where the data eggs might be, but can’t be 100% sure until they...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
It’s easy to say YES. Perhaps too easy. When the client asks for something – new research, some ad-hoc analysis, an extra workshop – it usually seems like a reasonable request. After all, they pay the bills and shouldn’t they get the most out...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Recently co-facilitated workshops for 2 days Lots of coffee, sticky notes, talking, listening, and filtering of ideas. We walked away with a list of prioritized recommendations and lots of action items – so I give it two thumbs up as an effective workshop. They...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Lots of clients, not all the same Let’s agree that there are a lot of different people on the client side. Some are doing the work, while others are only curious. When you have more than a handful of people involved, it’s very easy to get confused and make...
by Consultant's Mind | Team
Tonight I told a client that I believe there are really only 3 things that distinguish high-performing organizations from losers. Direction, leadership, and trust. Direction: Where are we headed? Who are we? Too many companies do not know what they are trying to...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Client executives are busy Sometimes it takes weeks to get on a client’s calendar. Yes, that’s even AFTER they’ve hired you to do work. Get time when you can Some of the best conversations you have with clients are the ones on the way back from...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consulting Mailman This is a phrase that I have used many times this week. It has come to be a short-hand way for me to say “overhead.” Like the post I wrote about not supervising others here, if you find yourself sitting in meetings where you are only...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This is a post I did 2 years ago. My new edits are in red color. Management consultants use the phrase “best practices” often. Perhaps too often. You will see that magical phrase mentioned numerous times in white papers and research on these...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Save face This is a simple concept that is critical for consultants and sales people to understand. Never put your client in a situation where you are directly and publicly disagreeing with them. Never box them into a corner where they might be ashamed of the...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Today I fired my CPA I have been thinking about it for a while. A few things have bothered me over the last six months, and in the end, it was the lack of courtesy and communication that really tipped the scales for me. Customer service is an attitude which makes the...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
This week my team interviewed more than 20 people, everyone from VPs down to the analysts and clerks. The interviews were a gold mine of insights – especially since we were still in the early days of the project collecting data. My throat was killing me, but...
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
Managers ask strategy questions Had a great strategy session with 30+ senior managers and directors recently. Some of the Q&A that came through the chat (yes, John loves chat during remote sessions): 1. Defining a strategy? Q: What are some key steps to take to...
by Consultant's Mind
Consulting Fundamentals: Skills, tools, tips (2023) Please find link to book on Amazon here: This is a sample of the content: I love consulting Yes, that’s a nerdy thing to say, I know. Wrote my MBA entrance essay about career switching into management consulting....
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I teach strategy as my day job. I also have the privilege or working with 500+ students, professionals, grinders, learners, athletes, performers, and winners. So yes, I am blessed. During my conversations, I often find myself relating strategy concepts to career...
by Consultant's Mind | Strategy
This is something I found myself saying a lot recently. Not matter if you’re a 20 year-old university student, or a 45 year-old corporate manager, life seems like it is a constant fire. Exams, recruiting, dating, conference calls, student clubs, PTA meetings,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
David Maister This gentleman has shaped the way I think about consulting, client-services, and my craft. If you look on the bookshelves of senior partners at law firms, accounting firms, consultancies, they have multiple books by David Maister. Recently, I took down...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
strategy has been on my brain Started teaching strategy at Emory six years ago. Sure, there were glimpses of strategy in my consulting deliverables, but now I am paid to think about it all day. I am either reading, talking, debating, or questioning business strategy...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Really enjoying ChatGPT If you have not tried ChatGPT, please stop reading this blog post and do that first. It’s worth your time. Massive hype The amount of (probably justifiable) hype on ChatGPT cannot be understated. Heck, my dad sent me a 20+ min video on...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
One PowerPoint slide a Day I first heard the expression “One PowerPoint a Day” reading McKinsey Way (affiliate link), many many years ago and still find it useful. While management consultants have many flaws (oh yeah, we do), we are generally disciplined thinkers. ...
by Consultant's Mind
After 10+ years blogging about consulting, I’ve finally put it down in a more systematic way for you. Spent 8 months recording videos on the following topics. You can access it here: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/managementconsulting There are 5...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Chief Financial officers have to juggle CFOs are trying to juggle 3 competing demands for resources and their time: Optimal capital structure Investor returns Investment in the business With the increase in interest rates, I thought this would be a mighty problem for...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Parents worry about their kids’ education Of course they do. That’s part of the job description. Clothe them, feed them, love them, teach them values, and give them the education they need to win in life. Yeah, talk about an underpaid job. The last two...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
One-pagers are super useful Consultant put their thoughts on PowerPoint. Sometimes, it’s for the final presentation, but much more often, it’s for simple one-pagers. These one-pagers serve a diversity of purposes: Checklist of data collection progress and...
by Consultant's Mind | Healthcare
30%+ of Nurses are Thinking about resigning Let’s agree that 30% is a big number. You don’t have to be an expert in organization design and change management to see that if 1/3 of your workforce is unhappy or disengaged, that’s a problem. In...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
I asked 40+ recent college graduates a bunch of questions. This is their response to the questions: What is your key takeaway about consulting / corporate life? What surprised you about corporate life? What would you like to share with juniors and seniors in...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consultants break down problems Open up any newspaper and you see that problems abound. Problems vary from the specific (e.g., corporate concerns about market share) to the global (e.g., accelerating climate change). Yes, to some this may seem negative and a bummer....
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What do consultants do? This seems like such a basic question – and yet, if you ask the parents of most management consultants – mom and dad would find it a bit difficult to explain what their son/daughter did every week. They might be scratching their...
by Consultant's Mind
Welcome to Management Consulting Consulting is awesome. Too many benefits to list them all: Work with smart people on tough problems Learn from every project and gain new marketable skills Discover the key challenges faced by leading clients Accelerate your...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Consulting is broad Management consulting is a disparate field with more than 700K+ Americans describing themselves as consultants. Yes, that’s possible – even though there are probably a good number of project managers, contractors, subject matter...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Data visualization sounds fancy, but it basically means charts and graphs. Consultants are good at quickly breaking down problems and telling stories with data. Graphs can be succinct: yes, “a picture tells a thousand words.” Lots of research has been done...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Good decisions require data Of course. Without some robust thinking and analysis based on data, it’s called (um) . . . guessing. Even if you are not a “quant”, you better be able to explain what a regression is and roughly how it works. Look –...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with 20+ executives to talk about strategy. It was a thought-provoking and courageous conversation. Yes, executives are under enormous pressure to 1) continue to do their day job well (maintain uptime, eliminate...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Podcasts are a great life hack, a low time-cost way to learn something. Recently, I’ve been enjoying the Goldman Sachs’ Exchanges podcast even though I am not a finance wonk. It has an interview format. The heads of different Goldman Sach’s business...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
I started this blog in 2012. Now, eight years later, I am starting a new blog here. I will be the editor, not the writer. Started blogging in 2012 When I started a new job in 2011, there was not a lot of work. Our group was not that busy and I was a bit bored. ...
by Consultant's Mind | Graphics
Consultants use PowerPoint almost to the point of parody. Yes, some of us turn it on first thing in the morning (hat tip: FL). Kinda makes sense. We are in the business of turning the complex into the simple. We put things into buckets – and the individual...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
First of all, you gotta love the provocative title of this article from Roger Martin, ex-Dean of Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto here. Big. Lie. Hard to get past those two words. Big Lie. Why is strategy (potentially) a scary thing? Martin starts...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Writing is a superpower Putting your thoughts on paper in an organized way pays massive dividends. If executives can learn quickly from the work you’ve done and make smart decisions, then you are winning. If it’s a pleasure to read and reflect on, even...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Yuk, news all the time. . . Like everyone else, I’ve been a bit glued to my phone – looking at the continually “breaking news” on the Covid-19 crisis. Frankly, there is a lot to know and be concerned about. As I told my students, the entire...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
The fancy phrases are “contingency plan” or “business continuity.” A year ago – if you were mature and prescient enough, you would have called it “scenario planning”. For now, it’s shocking and disorienting. In my...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
For many readers, your are excel professionals. You get happy – almost excited – to create tricked-out excel models to impress your boss and clients. The fact that there are 500+ formulas,100+ functions, and 200+ shortcuts, is kinda cool. Yes, you are a...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
What should you be doing mid-project? Just got off the phone with a project manager (hat tip: FH) about working smart in the middle of the project. Seems like we talk a lot about the beginning (proposal, kick-off, problem set up) and the end of the project...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Proposals are the life blood of any professional services, consulting firm. As Peter Drucker said, the purpose of business is to create a customer. In professional services, easier said that done. Customers don’t always know with clarity what they want, who...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
1. Consulting work/life balance? This is a question I get asked a good bit, so I sent out a survey and 90+ readers responded. Thank you. I asked several questions about the quality of the work, people, travel. See the original survey here. Will include a good...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Last Friday, I spent time with two of our case competition teams. We chatted about the logistics, judging, teamwork – but the majority of the time was spent on making killer presentations. Here’s the way I framed the pow-wow. 1.1 Start with the audience...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
It’s good to have a healthy skepticism with “business books.” Afterall, there are 8,000 of them published every year. Most are banal, reductionist, or derivative (fancy way of saying, boring). Rework (affiliate link) was written in 2010, and...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
It’s September/October, so case interviews will be in full swing for undergraduates and MBAs. More than 14% of Harvard’s undergraduate class goes into consulting, and it’s a great career that gives you life-long learning, good compensation, and many...
by Consultant's Mind | Learning
Many of you have probably seen Hans Rosling’s famous TED talk where he describes 200+ years of economic history using animated bubble charts and a very big stick. See below. Factfulness is the book. Factfulness: 10 Reasons We’re Wrong About the World,...
by Consultant's Mind | Consulting
Operational transparency is exactly what it sounds like. Showing the customer how hard you are working for them. Think of a restaurant with an open kitchen format so you can see the food being made. Think of Amazon that let’s you track the progress of your...
